Long-term stability of global erosion rates and weathering during late-Cenozoic cooling

Reports that the geological record of erosion indicates a fourfold increase in global sedimentation rates during the past 5 million years merited a global explanation. Explanations offered include an increased rate of mountain formation and global cooling. Now Jane Willenbring and Friedhelm von Blanckenburg reanalyse original data sets and use ocean records of beryllium isotope ratios to obtain an indirect measure of past erosion rates and rock weathering. They find no clear evidence either for an increase in global erosion or for a pulse of weathered material in the oceans during the past 12 million years. They suggest that Cenozoic global cooling must have some other cause, and the mountain building that did occur had little effect on erosion or weathering flux globally.